Flooring section



Nov. 11, 1958 1.. CESTARELLI FLOORING SECTION Filed Feb. 19, 1954 LU6'I0 CESTARELLI ATTORNEYS 2,859,490 FLOORING SECTION Lucio Cestarelli, Paris, France Application February 19, 1954, Serial No. 411,492

Claims priority, application France March 13, 1953 1 Claim. (CI. 20-45) It is a well-known fact that it is possible to form floors or the like surfaces by means of standard elements similar to tiles and there exist various methods for laying and possibly assembling such elements, so as to form such covering surfaces. In particular, in one of such prior methods, there is provided a groove in the lateral surfaces of each floor element, in which groove may be fitted a tongue rigid with an adjacent element. This leads to a mechanical assembly of the different elements with one another.

The different known standard elements the upper surfaces of which are made of wood, are objectionable, by reason of a common drawback which prevents their general use, said drawback consisting in that the alternating action of dry and moist atmospheres causes each of the Wooden slats or leaves forming an element to shrink, and the shrinkages thus arising in the different elements build up to considerably modify the design, which consequence is highly objectionable.

My invention has for its object a method for interconnecting the Wooden slats forming the diiferent standard elements in a manner such as will cut out the above mentioned drawbacks.

This method consists chiefly in holding at a constant spacing from each other the longitudinal axes of the slats forming an element. This method, which is chiefly but not exclusively applicable to elements which are assembled together by means of grooves and tongues, has for its result that, although each wooden slat may continue warping, the shrinkage to which it is submitted is no longer transmitted to the adjacent slats and consequently, each standard element retains in practice the perfectly accurate size assumed by it in the making.

In the present description, the expression longitudinal axis is intended to convey the meaning not only of the actual geometrical longitudinal axis of a slot, but also that of any predetermined line parallel to such an axis. The obtention of an unvariable spacing between the longitudinal axes may obviously be performed through any known or suitable means.

In accordance with my invention, it is of advantage to resort to a so-called comb member which acts both as an assembling tongue of the type referred to hereinabove and as a fastening member for interconnecting the parallel axes of different slats.

In a preferred embodiment, said comb member includes a thin and elongated body forming an assembling tongue and carrying, along one of its sides, means for interconnecting the slats forming a standard floor element.

These interconnecting means may be constituted by tenons adapted to engage mortises formed in the bottom of a groove in the element considered.

It is of greater advantage to give these interconnecting means a triangular shape, the angle at the apex of which is very acute, so that it may engage the bottom of the groove in the manner of a point.

The following description and corresponding accompanying drawings, which are given by way of a mere exemplification and by no means in a binding sense, disclose a preferred embodiment of my invention, the features appearing both in the specification and in the drawing forming, of course, part of the invention in so far as they are included in accompanying claim. In' said drawings:

Fig. 1 is a plan view of a comb member according to my invention, as seen from above;

Fig. 2 is a plan view of a floor element according to my invention;

Fig. 3 is a cross-sectional view through line III-III of Fig. 2.

The comb member which serves for interconnecting and holding fast the slats, in accordance with my invention, includes a body 1 carrying the actual interconnecting parts 2, 3 which are rigid or integral with one longitudinal side of the body 1. In the embodiment disclosed, the body 1 is made of metal sheet and the interconnecting parts 2, 3 assume the shape of sharp teeth. The comb member may be obtained through a mere stamping operation and it is preferably galvanized.

As mentioned hereinabove, the comb member which has just been described is preferably used in association with the tile-shaped floor elements which are assembled with one another by groove and tongue joints.

As illustrated in Fig. 2, the upper section of such a floor element is constituted by a series of parallel slats 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 the lengths of which correspond with that of the sides of the tiles, while the lower section of the tile which is constituted in any conventional manner, is not illustrated for sake of simplicity.

The tile is provided along its four sides with grooves 9, 10, 11 and 12 The above-mentioned interconnecting comb member engages the inside of the transverse grooves 11 and 12, while the breadth of the comb body 1 and the depth of the groove are defined in a manner such that the comb body projects out of the tile by about one half of its breadth. As illustrated in dotted lines, the teeth 2, 3 enter the bottom of the groove and consequently define in an unvaryingmanner the spacing between the longitudinal axes of the different corresponding slats.

Obviously, under such conditions, the transverse shrinking of each slat affects only said slat and does not build up with the shrinkages of the adjacent slats so as to form wide gaps between the different tiles. Obviously, the embodiment which has just been described has been given solely by way of exemplification and it is possible to bring various detail modifications thereto, without thereby unduly widening the scopev of my invention as defined in accompanying claims. In particular, the interconnecting parts 2, 3 may be spaced to an extent such that they engage only one slat out of two. Similarly, it is possible to do away with the intermediate interconnecting parts and to provide for each comb member only terminal interconnecting parts or teeth. This would lead merely to a slightly more considerable inner shrinkage, while the size of the different tiles would, however, remain identical with the original size thereof.

Lastly, it is obvious that the interconnecting comb may be made of any other suitable material such as plastic material, the recesses required for housing the interconnecting parts being formed, before introduction of the comb, in the sides of each tile, the engagement between the tiles and combs being then executed by gluing or the like operation.

What I claim is:

A flooring section comprising a series of equal length parallel slats positioned in the same plane one beside the other, each of said slats having slots each extending the length of one of the ends thereof with the respective end slots of all of said slats extending in a line, a pair of 3 4 connectors, each connector being of a relatively fiat References Cited in the file of this patent elongated configuration and positioned in the slots of said UNITED STATES PATENTS slats at one end of the slats, each connector being wlder than its respective slot is deep whereby the connector 666,345 Goehst 1901 extends from the end of the slat and each connector hav- 5 792317 Cooley June 1905 ing a series of tapered projections extending from a side 19351924 Tyden 201 1912 thereof with the altitude of each projection being sub- 1,407,709 Tlbbals 1922 stantially perpendicular to said connector side and posi- 2,482,405 Edhmd Sept 1949 tioned extending into one of said slats longitudinally FOREIGN PATENTS thereof retaining said slats at a constant spacing relative 10 79,865 Norway June 30, 1952 to one another. 

